Alien Romulus * * *

Oh my God.... your breath!

Alien started off as one of the greatest horror films - indeed one of the greatest films -  of all time but unfortunately the sequels just got progressively worse. 

The problem is, you can't do the same trick twice but after seven films it still keeps trying to scare and horrify us with a creature we are all too familiar with.  We're now at a stage where it feels you could pat the little fella on the head.

In the Alien storyline, Romulus is sandwiched between the first Alien film and the second (Aliens) which means no Ripley, as according to the timeline she's floating around in space somewhere in an escape pod.

Director Fede Alvarez gives us the classic young people stuck in the haunted house scenario, and the make-up of the team reflect that with the bully boy, the kind boy, the insecure boy, the smart girl, the tough girl, the sweet girl.  You'll know them when you meet them.

Alien films are a bit of a recipe: you've got to have one person who is actually a robot/simulant, and the lead has to be a pretty young thing who gets all hot and sweaty and strips down to her skimpies for the final confrontation with the Alien: tick and tick for those two items in this latest installment.

Another feature of Alien films is that they tend to choose one or two name actors whilst the rest of the cast are relatively unknown.  This time the known actress is Cailee Spaeny.  She does well, but I have to say she is outshone by British actor and newcomer, David Jonnson.

The young people are runaways.  They are stuck on some god awful sunless planet where everyone is a miner and there is clearly no union and no future, so they nick off. They've heard about a  decommissioned spaceship not so far away. It's floating out there somewhere. Their plan is to get the fuel from that spaceship and then make it to some place where the future is brighter.  Go kids!

Most of the film is set on the decommissioned space ship (haunted house) where the kids get familiar with the the Aliens.  

There are some good scenes and ideas in this film. It looks great, especially the opening scenes set in the mining community. 

The first Alien wowed us, but in no time the technology in looked naive with its prediction of green CRT monitors and clunky keyboards. Romulus supports that miscalculated imagery, rather than trying to correct it (what's the point? It will only date again.)  I liked that. 

Most fascinating though is the treatment of the robot/simulant in this film with it's clear and disturbing parable of a black man in a racist society.  That was admirable. And the inevitable hybrid Alien that we are confronted with in the end gave us food for thought too. 

As for the droolly double-mouths, the face huggers, the chest bursters and sticky-web builders, it's just more of the same. One of the characters even calls Alien a "Bitch!" again.  

Still it's good fun, even if it can't shock or surprise you.